Rome:Italian translator Silvia Pozzi has been awarded a Pisa Book Translation Award for her work on the novel "Ghost Town" by Taiwanese author Kevin Chen.

According to Focus Taiwan, the Italian edition of the novel, titled "Citt  fantasma," was honored at a ceremony at the Palazzo della Sapienza in Rome. This event was part of the Pisa Book Festival, an annual gathering of authors, publishers, and readers.

The novel, set in Yongjing, a small town in Changhua County, Taiwan, tells the story of a man returning home after serving a prison sentence in Germany for killing his boyfriend. It delves into themes of family trauma, hometown connections, and the impact of Taiwan's historical events.

Culture Minister Li Yuan commented in a news release that Kevin Chen's unique writing style brings a magical, dark, and melancholic character to local history, making it attractive to international publishers. Li also mentioned the ministry's plans to support Taiwanese literature translations by developing translators and enhancing translation quality to widen the global reach of Taiwanese works.

Pozzi is a professor at the University of Milano-Bicocca, specializing in Chinese and Southeast Asian languages and literature. She has previously translated works by Chiu Miao-chin and Wu Ming-yi, and is currently translating Yang Shuang-tzu's "Taiwan Travelogue" for an Italian publisher. This work won the International Booker Prize earlier this year.

"Ghost Town" has achieved international acclaim, with mentions in The New York Times Book Review in 2022 and a place on the 2023 PEN Translation Prize longlist. Its translation rights have been sold in over ten languages, including English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, and Thai.